1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to communication networks, and more particularly, to determining various types of network delay with location independence from retransmission delay and application data transfer delay.
2. Description of the Related Art
Communication networks typically include, in part, various client-side and server-side devices that transfer information or data there-between. Importantly, metrics such as response time and communication delay between the various network devices provides insight into traffic flow and can be used for developing delay mitigation strategies as well as used to implement changes to network topology, improve communication protocols, and the like.
Network delay between the various devices can be measured, for example, as an end user response time, and includes an aggregate of an application response time, a data transfer time, and a network round trip. Application response time reflects a time to a first byte for transaction response, the data transfer time represents a total time to send all of the requested data in response to a single transaction request, and a network round trip represents a bi-directional network latency (e.g., excluding client/server processing time). Although various techniques are used to measure this end-user response time, however, such techniques are typically influenced by the location where measurement occurs. That is, these various techniques yield different results if measured from close to a server-side device, close to a client-side device, or somewhere in between.
Although determining the end-user response time in this fashion may be important in certain applications, such end-user response time does not scale appropriately when implemented in virtualization solutions and/or cloud outsourcing solutions (e.g., moving further from a server). Accordingly, there is still a need for improved network delay techniques that allow for location independence that are scalable and suitable for virtualized as well as cloud solutions.